Long Jane, the Taleteller. Jane doesn't talk about her past much, but she'll gladly talk about anything else. Judging by her looks, there might be a spot of Indian blood knocking about somewhere in her family tree, but she doesn't seem to be either a Ravenite or an Old Wayer. Probably, her folks just didn't care either way. A few people have heard of her in the scattered settlements she usually runs through. A visit from Long Jane is usually good for at least an evening's amusement, they say. She's a decent singer, and spins a good yarn, as well as keeping the news moving from town to town. Besides that, she does magic tricks for the little ones, with spare bullets or a deck of cards.

Jane's tall for a woman, and well built, fairly strong and fit with tanned skin starting to weather into thin wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. She's only 25, but it's been a busy life so far, and she has no plans to slow down anytime soon. Her eyes are dark brown, lively and dancing, and she wears her dark hair in braids, usually, one big one or two smaller, one on each shoulder. There are a couple of feathers knotted into the braids, most days. She's a fine looking woman, but unwilling to settle down anywhere. She dearly loves being the center of attention, which may be why she keeps moving. There's very little she hates more than being embarrassed or ignored.

Jane wears her trademark jade-green flannel shirt with a pair of worn, hand-made pants and a bulky leather wrap that she claims is the tanned hide of a single mutie bear. She may be lying.

One more thing that Jane rarely talks about or makes obvious is her Mysterious Background. Someone in her ancestry made an Ancient Pact with the spirits, and hereditary power crops up in some members of her line. In her case, she can grow claws at will. She tries hard not to have to do this in public.

Moonstone the Doomsayer. Moonstone is too young , at 19, to remember the days before the Apocalypse, aside from one or two recollections of sunny days and green grass. Likewise, she's too young to recall what it was like before her mutation, either. In bright, direct light, Moonstone looks almost perfectly normal, a bit pale-skinned perhaps, but that's all. Her hair is long, fine-textured, and light ash-brown, and her eyes are gray. She's a pretty girl, with a rather ethereal look. The catch is that, once the lights go out, Moonstone lives up to her name, and glows in the dark. A freak genetic hiccup gave her a layer of bioluminescent cells just under her skin. So far as she can tell, that's all they do; glow. The intensity and color change depending on her physical condition, but never much. The glow gets dimmer and yellowish when she's tired or low on energy, is bright and colorless when she's well rested and calm, and shades over into bluish/green when she's under stress or agitated. The one time she got seriously hurt, they dimmed almost to going out and turned a dull red. The glow is bright enough so that she never needs a flashlight, but she usually keeps covered up to avoid freaking the norms.

Moonstone was picked up by a clutch of Doomsayers about as early as there were Doomsayers, and her Mentor was one of the ones that left with Joan when Silas's corruption became obvious. He took Moonstone with him when he left, and she embraced Joan's teachings wholeheartedly. She's seen and heard about some of the things Silas does, and she's far more afraid of him than anything else. This is partly inexperience with other threats, and partly too much experience, admittedly mostly by proxy, with Silas and his methods. Partly because of this, Moonstone is terribly afraid of somehow betraying Joan's inner circle, because she may be the weakest person to know most of them by sight. In point of fact, she's not nearly so important, but no-one said fears had to be reasonable.

Moonstone is too young, also, to realize how stupid idealism can be. She belongs to Joan's Schismatics body and soul, and devoutly believes in their message of destiny for the muties. She's yet to run into any personal examples of norm prejudice, but she's heard stories. Whether that really took the edge of her naivet� remains to be seen. She just recently started out on her own, after graduating to full Doomsayer status, and she's determined to make her Mentor proud, and teach all the norms that Joan's Doomsayers are good people. If she survives the first year or so, she may actually make a name for herself.

Typically, Moonstone wears her long, hooded purple robe with gloves, leggings, and leather moccasins. If she's trying to sneak somewhere, she'll probably mask her face as well, even under the hood, to hide as much of the glow as possible.

"Shotgun" Millie, the trader. Millie is about 30 and busy as a mutant bee! No time to brood, there's things to do out here in this new, Wasted West. She's a short, rather stocky woman with fair hair cropped short and non-descript features, whose purpose in life is trade. She runs, or attempts to run, a trade route between several settlements, swapping bullets, trade beads, leather & jerky, and mechanical scraps for whatever she thinks she can sell elsewhere. Some of the stuff she makes herself, tailoring up clothes and patching up simple devices. Other stuff she finds or buys off isolated settlements that can't trade outside themselves.

Millie may have a good heart, but she hates anything that slows her down, and is very well aware that no-body else is going to look out for her interests if she doesn't. She also has a wicked short temper, and tends to be quite vocal about it when she's pissed off. If you can make it worth her while, she'll carry messages or give you a lift, but don't count on charity! She leaves that to the Templars and their ilk. Despite all her grumbling, though, Millie would find it harder than she lets on to abandon someone who was really in need of help. She just doesn't like idiots who feel she owes them something, or the self-righteous types who get ticked that she's making a profit off of basic supplies. As she sees it, if it wasn't for her, they wouldn't be getting them at all, never mind at a cost.

She owns two horses, and trades out riding them or using them as packhorses or carthorses depending on how much stuff she's packing with her at that point. Her preferred weapon is a big ol' shotgun and a faceful of bad attitude. A few people have tried to rob her, but nobody's tried to do it twice. Still, between her bad eyes and the rough trails, she's starting to wish for a partner, or at least a reliable guard to be her eyes-behind on the roads.

Millie's cart is a clunky, handmade vehicle that can't move faster than a slow walk without threatening to lose a wheel, but it lets her haul over 350 lbs. of assorted stuff, even bulky stuff like cloth. Her horses are thoroughly unexceptional critters with patchy coats and tired looks, named Left Turn (with a drooping ear as if he was signaling), and Wall-Eye (With cataracts in one eye from radiation and a perpetual stare) Despite being basically grunt stock, the two horses are surprisingly well behaved, at least for Millie. But then, she's always had a way with animals.

Her one notable Enemy is the 'mayor' of a middling settlement who hassled her once too often about his 'regulations' on trade. She sharpened the rough side of her tongue on him quite publicly, made him look like an idiot, and rode back out of town. He took it personally, and would cry no tears if something were to happen to her in his area. Millie doesn't go back there regularly, but she does trade with a few outlying homesteads in that region.

Sister Ruth, the Templar. Ruth is fairly young, and she and her parents weathered the Apocalypse well, in one of the swiftly-fortified Wall towns. However, they were all a bit lost for plans, and Ruth wanted to do more than grub in the dirt to raise corn and potatoes. Her childhood addiction to a surviving children's book, King Arthur and his Knights, fed her early dreams and ambitions, but she had no way to act on them, until the day a Templar rode through town. Ruth was only seventeen, but she knew what she wanted, and she was just insistent enough to get it. Not that year, but later on, when Brother James came back for her and asked if she wanted to be his squire. She jumped at the chance and never looked back.

After two years in training, James presented her to Simon, and she was sworn in as a full-fledged Templar. Overflowing with pride and excitement, she set out to make a name for herself, but forgot the cardinal rule of Templardom. All her brethren are supposed to weigh the odds against the virtue of the people that they're trying to save. Ruth forgot to weigh the odds, and got in waaay over her flaxen head. It was a small settlement, down in an almost-sheltered valley, and she was too starry-eyed to turn down a plea for help. Unfortunately, the thing that was trampling their crops and eating their livestock was bigger, meaner, and faster than she was. Halfway through the fight, she knew she was going down. But she decided to take it down with her anyway. She's still proud of that. Yes, still. She's not sure how it happened, but after stabbing the thing through it's brain with her last ounce of strength, she came to some time later, still sprawled out next to it, and found that she'd made a surprisingly complete recovery.

Ruth's not aware of it yet, but she was right the first time. She died. And she got back up with a world-class manitou rattling around her subconsious, to boot. Ruth is a Harrowed who just hasn't figured it out yet. How this shapes up, what with a demon of no mean power on time-share in her brain, remains to be seen. But it may have tackled a little more than it expected. On the other hand, so does she, most times. . .